June 11, 2017

On Courtesy - Race, Gender and the 45 Defensive
By Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Courtesy flew out of the window in Washington parlance a long time ago.  The minute a deranged Congressman stood up and hollered, “you lie” at a sitting President (this was South Carolina Republican Congressman Joe Wilson yelling at President Barack Obama), we knew that courtesy had taken a vacation.  Courtesy took more than a time out when we had a Presidential candidate bragging about grabbing p***y and calling our Mexican American brothers and sisters rapists.  Courtesy was even more far gone when 45 attacked Congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis (D-GA) because of a disagreement.  But courtesy was really kicked to the curb when Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) had the audacity to scold his colleague, the scintillating Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) because she was theoretically not courteous to the dissembling liar, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, when she asked pointed questions about the firing of former FBI director James Comey.  As she became aggressive, which was her right, Senator Burr, who asked that Mr. Rosenstein be treated “with courtesy”, admonished her.

What is courtesy?  A dictionary defines it as “excellence of manners or social conduct”, “polite behavior”, “courteous, respectful or considerate acts”, “Indulgence, consent, or acquiescence.”  A senate hearing is not the place to have “indulgence”.  It is not the place to, necessarily, offer acquiescence. It is the place to ask hard questions and to demand uneasy answers.  It is not the place, apparently, for an intelligent African American woman to do her job, given that Senator Richard Burr seems to think that Black women don’t get to ask hard questions.

We’ve been down this road before.  A couple of months ago, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) was shut down when she attempted to read a letter that the late Coretta Scott King wrote about current Attorney General Jeff Sessions.  Her colleagues voted to halt her remarks because of some obscure rule that prevents Senators from criticizing their colleagues.  More importantly, they voted to treat her in a way that they had treated no man.  Just like they voted to scold Senator Harris.

Senator Harris will not back down from her senatorial detractors.  A seasoned prosecutor who has clawed her way up the political hierarchy in California, is a woman who does not play.  She didn’t back down, and she won’t back down.  All she wants, and all we want, are answers about what has happened about the Comey firing, the FBI investigations, and more.  As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she is entitled to push as aggressively as required, and she must be allowed to have no pushback.  How dare Richard Burr chastise her about courtesy?  We are experiencing the most discourteous Presidential administration that we ever have.  Seasoned politicos remember the Reagan administration as an ideological shift, but not a total absence of courtesy.  Reagan, totally flawed, was at least affable.  45 is a mean, myopic, narcissistic, odious and rude man.  And his minions, like Richard Burr, are especially going to have his back when a Black woman is pushing the envelope.  Several other Senators, equally pointed, were allowed to go after the liars.  Only Senator Kamal Harris was pushed.

I am lifting up Senator Kamala Harris, and reminding myself of the words she offered at her victory party on November 8, 2016.  She said, “It is the very nature of this fight for civil rights and justice and equality that whatever gains we make, they will not be permanent. So we must be vigilant,” Harris said. “Do not despair. Do not be overwhelmed. Do not throw up our hands when it is time to roll up our sleeves and fight for who we are.”

Julianne Malveaux is an economist, author, and Founder of Economic Education. Her podcast, “It’s Personal with Dr. J” is available on iTunes. Her latest book “Are We Better Off: Race, Obama and public policy is available via amazon.com

June 5, 2017

Black Organizations, Lawmakers Slam Trump Budget
By Barrington M. Salmon

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - President Donald Trump has unveiled his 2018 budget to resounding criticism and derision from a range of critics, including the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), the US Black Chamber Inc., policymakers, pundits, and other Congressional lawmakers.

“President Trump’s budget is based on the ill-advised idea that the poor can pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” says CBC Chair Rep. Cedrick Richmond (D-La.). “The truth is that some folks don’t have boots and tax cuts for the wealthy won’t help them buy a pair. A budget that threatens the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans who, through no fault of their own, depend on social safety net and other federal programs, will not make America great again.”

Richmond is among African-American politicians, civil rights advocates and academicians and political experts who contend that the budget, if enacted, would unduly affect blacks, people of color, the poor and the vulnerable.

The budget reveals the administration’s fiscal priorities and includes extreme cuts in spending in education, food stamps, Medicaid, access to student loans, nutritional assistance, small business and the environment. Over the next 10 years, the proposed budget would strip more than $800 billion from Medicaid and $272 billion over all from welfare programs. Meanwhile, domestic programs would see funding reduced by $57 billion.

The largest beneficiaries would be the military – to which $54 billion is being directed – Homeland Security and the nation’s most wealthy who would again receive massive tax cuts which people like billionaire Warren Buffett has said is totally unnecessary and unneeded.

“This budget is immoral and irresponsible and confirms what then-candidate Trump showed us time and time again – he only cares about people who have bank accounts that look like his,” Richmond continued. “We encourage President Trump, Office of Management and Budget Director (Mick) Mulvaney and the Administration to learn from the CBC budget, which is moral and responsible and invests in families and our nation’s future. The CBC budget will move every American forward, not just those at the top, all while reducing the national debt.”

Politico Senior Staff Writer Michael Grunwald skewered the budget proposal, calling it a scam and castigating the Trump team for played fast and loose with the numbers.

“ … This proposal is unusually brazen in its defiance of basic math, and in its accounting discrepancies amounting to trillions-with-a-t rather than mere millions or billions,” Grunwald writes. “Budgets hinge on assumptions about taxes, spending and economic growth, and the Trump budget plays fast and loose with all three to try to achieve the illusion of balance, relying heavily on spectacular growth assumptions as well as vague and unrealistic promises to eliminate tax breaks and additional spending programs that go conveniently unnamed in the text. It proclaims that “we have borrowed from our children and their future for far too long, but it is a blueprint for far more borrowing and far more debt.”

Ron Busby, president of the U.S. Black Chambers Inc., a D.C.-based national advocate for Black-owned businesses, expressed disappointment and puzzlement at a president who claims to business-friendly but who has proposed to eliminate the Minority Business Development Agency.

Busby said the program accounts for less than .001 percent of federal spending, has produced 125,000 jobs, supports business centers throughout the country and has helped secure $36 billion in contracts and capital for minority-owned businesses. Three weeks before Trump’s announcement, Busby said that Congress increased the program's funding to $34,000,000 after he testified before the House Appropriations Committee and explained to Congress the importance of continuing funding.

"Yet again, the Trump Administration that campaigned on job creation turns its back on the very programs proven to spur minority business growth,” said Busby in a statement. “Eliminating the only program dedicated to a diversity of job creators is an affront to the millions of minority entrepreneurs nationwide. We urge Congress to resist this ludicrous proposal and maintain their bipartisan support of the Minority Business Development Agency."

Kimberly Hall and Michael Hilton, of The Poverty & Race Research Council (PRRAC), co-wrote an op-ed arguing for the Trump administration and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to make a high quality education for all American children a priority.

“This proposed budget will close the doors of opportunity to hundreds of thousands of young minds around the country,” the op-ed said. “We urge Congress to reject this attack on equal access to a quality public education, students' civil rights, and ultimately our country's long-term ability to continue as a global leader. As we seek to prepare our students to compete on a global stage, the Trump Administration proposes to divert support from programs that have proven to benefit students' life outcomes to fund programs that have shown to cause academic harm. But it does not stop there.
The already short staffed Office of Civil Rights is on the line for considerable cuts in funding and staff positions. At a time when the complaint levels are near historic highs with a record number of complaints year after year, this budget will cripple the already understaffed office charged with protecting the civil rights of all students.”

Not everyone is upset about the proposed cuts. The CATO Institute, for example, praised Trump’s proposal. CATO says the plan would eliminate the budget deficit within a decade and be beneficial for a number of reasons.

CATO believes the cuts would spur economic growth, while reforms to welfare programs will encourage more people to join the labor force and add to the nation’s output.

In order to pay for defense, Homeland Security and a wall at the border, Trump’s cuts also include the reduction or elimination of:

• The Corporation for Public Broadcasting
• Public service loan forgiveness
• Student Support and Academic Enrichment grants
• Community services block grants
• The Low Income Home Energy Assistance program
• The Home Investment Partnerships program
• The Energy Star and voluntary climate programs
• National Endowment for the Arts
• National Endowment for the Humanities
• The Overseas Employment Corporation

June 5, 2017

Justice Advocate Kemba Smith Credits Prayer, 'Pressure from the Black Community' for Her Freedom
By Alanté Millow

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Guests wearing beautiful attire greeted each other warmly as they gathered in the Kristel Room of the Greater Mt. Calvary Holy Church. Elegant crystal fixtures hung from the ceiling and the deep purple decor gave an atmosphere of royalty.

The scene at the Saturday morning prayer brunch belied the tremendous hardships that many of the attendants had overcome – including the keynote speaker, Kemba Smith.

“My priority had become this man. This man that I had put before my family, put before my God, put before loving me and my dreams and goals of what I wanted to become,” Smith said. “So my crime wasn’t that I was criminally-minded, my crime was that I chose the wrong relationship.”

It is a story that is nationally known. While attending college at Hampton University, Smith’s life turned upside down after she got into an abusive relationship with local drug dealer, Peter Hall. His illegal drug activity eventually left Smith in the middle of a federal investigation. In 1995, after Hall was killed by homicide, she was sentenced to over 24 years in prison for charges that included lying to federal authorities and carrying cash related to Hall’s drug trafficking.

Although federal prosecutors acknowledged that there was no evidence that Smith used or sold cocaine and she had no prior criminal record, she fell victim to harsh drug mandatory minimum sentencing laws. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, the federal trafficking penalty for first-time offenders involving cocaine - five kilograms or more - is a minimum 10-year sentence. If the offense involved death or serious injury, the minimum sentence is raised to 20 years.

After Smith’s story was featured on the cover of Emerge magazine in 1996, she and her family were offered free legal aid by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund to fight for her release. After several failed attempts, they petitioned former President Bill Clinton for clemency, and in December of 2000, Smith was granted freedom after serving six years. She attributes part of this success to “the pressure from the Black community,” with the streams of letters and petitions supporting her case and the tireless advocacy of her parents, Gus and Odessa Smith.

But, the fight had been tumultuous. She recalled yearning for freedom while imprisoned and pregnant with Hall’s son.

“I remember when I was in federal prison, seven months pregnant, scared to death, wasn’t sure what the outcome of my situation was going to be… I asked God to please allow me to be a voice so that I can prevent other people from going down the same path,” Smith said. “It’s not about me, it’s about saving lives and doing God’s work.”

Shortly after her release, Smith finished her bachelor’s degree in social work from Virginia Union University and went on to establish the Kemba Smith Foundation. Through her foundation, she advocates for the reform of mandatory sentencing laws and influences young adults to avoid illegal drugs, abusive relationships and crime.

“There’s some grown women that don’t want to talk about the poor choices they made---being in a relationship with a drug dealer, him beating me, him killing his best friend. This stuff is not pretty stuff,” Smith said. “But God has blessed me and given me the courage to share.”

That sharing has taken her into places far beyond her imagination in prison. Smith traveled with an NAACP delegation to Switzerland to speak with the United Nations about voter suppression laws in the United States, which largely include convicted felons. She was able to cast her vote in the past two elections, and fights for that same right for other formerly incarcerated people.

On March 30, 2016, she met President Barack Obama in a White House meeting during which he greeted formerly incarcerated individuals who had received commutations. At that time, President Obama President Obama had commuted the sentences of 61 drug offenders. And more than one thousand non-violent drug offenders had their sentences reduced.

Smith currently has power and influence of her own. As a member of the Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission “I’m sitting in the room with good ‘ol boy, bow tie wearing judges of Virginia and prosecutors and I have a say at the table about certain crime sentences, costs [and] policies,” she said.

With President Donald Trump in office, Smith said things have been “very grim” transitioning into the new administration. In spite of that, she is hopeful.

“It’s our hope to get this administration to continue the commutations and see the importance in that. And one of the things that’s important is sharing the stories,” Smith said. “I, for one, understand the power of sharing a story…Never in a million years would I have thought that me making the decision to say, ‘yes I’ll do this article’… [would have] launched a movement.”

As Smith closed her speech, she received a standing ovation. The Rev. Cheryl Mercer, an ordained elder of Greater Mt. Calvary Holy Church and organizer of the prayer brunch, sponsored by her Women of Worth Fellowship International Ministries, said she is glad attendees were able to enjoy brunch and fill their spirits at the same time. Mercer knows well the hardships of the incarcerated. Professionally, she is a community advocate of social justice who works through the faith based initiatives of the federal Court Services & Offender Supervision Agency known as CSOSA.

“So many of the women I work with have all kinds of situations in life - choosing the wrong people in their life, drugs, alcohol,” Mercer said. “[Smith] has such a victorious story that I knew that if I could get her here, so that those women could hear her and see what God has done, that it could transform [their] thinking.”

To learn more about Smith’s story, she has written a memoir, Poster Child: The Kemba Smith Story, available on her website, www.kembasmith.com.

June 4, 2017

Diverging Paths to Higher Education:
White House Cuts Funding as Sen. Durbin Pleads ‘Give Struggling Students a Fair Chance’
By Charlene Crowell 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - No one ever said that higher education wouldn’t cost money. Across the country, tuition is steadily rising and students are taking longer to pay off their student loans.

Today, 44 million consumers share $1.4 trillion in borrowed student debt – more than double what it was in 2008. On average, graduating seniors with a bachelor’s degree begin their careers with about $30,000 in student loans, while graduate students are almost assured of incurring six-figure student debt.

All of these financial burdens have been acquired against a backdrop of an increasingly competitive global economy. The 21^st Century marketplace is also dependent upon a highly-skilled workforce. Gone are the days when manufacturing could provide a steady and comfortable living. From steel to textiles and more, global competition requires America to work smarter and harder.

So why would the Trump Administration propose a $9.2 billion cut in education?

Over the next decade, the White House wants to ‘save’ $143 billion from college loan programs, including an end to $26.8 billion in subsidized loans. Currently, Pell Grants, designed to assist low-income students, are capped at less than $6,000 per scholastic year despite the average cost of tuition at a public college for its own state students approaching $10,000 per year.

Here’s one White House explanation on how less access to higher education going to help the nation’s ability to remain economically competitive.

“We're no longer going to measure compassion by the number of programs or the number of people on those programs, but by the number of people we help get off of those programs,” said White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney during a May 23 press briefing.  

It seems like the White House is really averse to more Americans receiving a higher education at a time when college costs and its resulting debt are on an upward trajectory. Certainly, education budget cuts will not ‘make America great again’.

Two days later and on the floor of the U.S. Senate, a diverging view was spoken, “Let’s give struggling students a fair chance,” said Illinois’ Sen. Richard Durbin, a member of the powerful Appropriations Committee, which decides federal spending priorities.

“We are seeing an increase in the wealth gap between college graduates with student debt and those without student debt”, Durbin continued. “The burdens of student debt are threatening the notion that being college-educated is enough to get ahead.”

Sen. Durbin went on to share the story of a Chicago constituent, the first in her family to attend college, who appealed to his office for help. The majority of the former student’s debts totaling $120,000 were private loans with high interest rates and monthly payments that were just as costly. The student also felt she had no chance of financial improvement due to an ill-conceived enactment of a bill that prevented such debts being discharged in bankruptcy.

Since 2005, student loan debt, unlike other types of unsecured debt cannot be a part of a bankruptcy filing. In other words, it’s the kind of debt that could potentially follow borrowers to the grave.

The Fairness for Struggling Students Act of 2017 (S. 1262), introduced by Sen. Durbin and co-sponsored by 11 other Senators would allow financially struggling borrows to discharge private student loans in bankruptcy. The law is anticipated to relieve high-cost private loans that seldom come with many of the flexible repayment terms offered by federal ones. Some private student loans come with variable interest rates, high origination fees and scant – if any – repayment options.

Already the bill has attracted the support of a large coalition of educational, student, civil rights and consumer organizations that include: the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), NAACP, the American Federation of Teachers, the Empire Justice Center, National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, and the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL).

According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), in 2012, at least 850,000 private loan borrowers were in default in the amount of $8 billion. Two years later in 2014, CFPB analyzed more than 5,300 private student loan complaints filed between October 2013 and September 2014. That analysis found that the lack of affordable repayment plans, not a disregard for the debt, drove many borrowers to default.

Defaulting on a private student loan has the potential to bring even more financial calamity to borrowers. In some cases, the entire loan balance may become due in full, immediately. Loan defaults can also lower consumers’ credit profiles, preventing some borrowers from passing a background check for a job, obtaining housing, or accessing low interest forms of credit.

Additional CRL research has found that:

§  Four years after graduation, Black students with a bachelor’s degree owe almost double the debt their white classmates owe; and

§  While for-profit college enrollment represents 9.1% of all college students, these schools generate over 35% of all students who default on their loans; and

“Quality education is an investment – not a cost – to our nation’s future," noted Whitney Barkley-Denney, a CRL policy counsel. “Its policies and practices must assure student success while minimizing costly debt errors that become unnecessary burdens.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren says, “When students fall off a financial cliff, they should be able to discharge their private student loan debt in bankruptcy – just like people can with other kinds of debt,” said  “Banks fought hard more than a decade ago to exempt student loan debt from bankruptcy protections, and now we’ve seen the consequences: too many students are crushed by debt with no chance for a new start.”

Charlene Crowell is the Center for Responsible Lending’s communications deputy director. She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..